Local people -- critters in need!

[qatarperegrine]

The Qatar Animal Welfare Socity, where Justin and I used to volunteer as dog-walkers, burned down to the ground yesterday. Most of the cats and a couple dogs died, but around 50 dogs, 15 cats, and the farm animals survived.

The surviving dogs and cats are being housed at Qatar Veterinary Centre, the Veterinary Surgery, and Pampered Pets, but they need blankets and bedding, dog and cat food, cat litter, collars and leads, toys, crates and litter trays (cheap at Daiso). At least as importantly, they need dog-walkers and foster homes.

QAWS itself needs cat food, bales of hay and massive quantities of water for the farm animals.

Cash donations can't be accepted because QAWS, despite years of efforts, is not a registered charity. Good work, arcane Qatari charity laws.

Pictures, news and updated info can be found on Qatar Living.

Comments

Re: Not Region-Suitable

[(Anonymous)]

First off, an animal shelter isn't just for feeding stray animals. It's one of the guise of the pet industry. So, reducing the argument to merely feeding needy animals isn't accurate since I'm opposing the whole idea of an animal shelter because it's an inlet for a much more lavish and wasteful activity.

Secondly, I mentioned that the practice of owning pets is foreign to this region because of "societal, religious, and even economic standards". Why you chose to ignore the first and third aspect of the standards and chose to address only the middle one is a bit interesting. For the sake of the argument, I'm going to assume that what you're advocating does not contradict the common religious belief here (and you'll find out in a bit that even that assumption isn't right). Say that religious standards do not mind the pet industry… what about the economic and societal standards that you ignored? They make up 2 thirds of the reason why pet ownership is foreign to this region. It's as if this society is too uni-dimensional: if Allah (or his supposed representatives) says it's ok to advocate the pet industry, then it must be ok to do so. No… there are many many layers to the society of this region, and religion constitutes only 1 of those layers. Reality is much more complex than this overly simplistic view of this society. So, even if your call is accepted religiously, it will still be rejected on other grounds that have nothing to do with religion, and the pet industry would still be very foreign to this culture.

(To be continued)